Stay Brune
by just like our last
Summary: Stupid girl, I should've known, I should've known...


**Author's note: I know this isn't my best. This was just a vent. Because I'm losing my mind. And though my situation has absolutely nothing to do with Carly's in this fic, and it's more the fact that I've been so stressed and so depressed lately that I don't know what to do with myself and I have absolutely no idea what to do about anything, the fact that I'm head over heals for a guy that has a girlfriend might have something to do with my terrible mood lately. But I think it's more the stress and depression. I need a break. I need a smile. I need someone to hug me and tell me it will be okay. I need what Carly needs, even if it's for a different reason. I need someone.**

**Disclaimer: iCarly belongs to Dan Schneider. **

...

Carly fondles a little orange piece of paper in her hands, the sloppy letters of Sam's distinct handwriting scrawled onto it quickly. Tattered and obviously overly handled, the little piece of paper reminds Carly of better days, of times when Sam remembered her. Two words, small and impossibly messy, words that meant absolutely everything to Carly, and nothing to anyone else. Words that remind her that Sam used to be _her's_, words that remind her of the unlikelihood of their beautiful friendship, words that remind her of skinny dipping and sleepovers and gossiping and all the things they taught each other. Just two words.

_Stay brune._

Carly waits, remembering the night when Sam kissed Freddie. Remembering how betrayed and hurt she felt as she watched from the window. They were best friends, and best friends didn't keep secrets from each other. They had agreed to that long ago. And yet Sam had kept her feelings from Freddie for how long now? Carly couldn't be sure. She was stupid not to see it before. She was stupid not to see Sam's insults and abuse towards Freddie as a cover up for whatever she had been hiding all these years. She was stupid.

_"Sam, we need to talk." _

_"Yeah, Carls?"_

_"Why didn't you tell me you liked Freddie?"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"You promised we'd never keep secrets from each other. How long have you liked him?"_

_"Since... since I met him."_

_"And you didn't tell me?" _

_"Well, I didn't think that you'd-"_

_"Didn't think I'd care? You're my best friend, Sam! I could have helped or... or something. Why don't you tell me these things? Don't you trust me?"_

_"More than anything. You know that."_

_"Then why didn't you-"_

Sam had cut her off by placing a kiss on her cheek and a crumpled orange piece of paper in her hand, the very one Carly fondles now as she remembers that moment, a moment that occurred the day after Sam checked out of the mental hospital. Carly still ponders those words, still wonders what they mean.

_Stay brune._

As though Sam was planning on making sure everything fell apart in just the right way to break Carly into a million pieces. As though Sam was giving her a last moment, a last memory, a last word of the phrase they knew so well, a phrase that meant everything to them and nothing to anyone else. A last thought.

Carly remembers everything. Every word, every regret, every fight, every song, every drink, every smile.

She was just sick of it at the time. She couldn't take it. She was losing sleep, losing sanity, losing herself, and most of all, losing her best friend. She was letting go of all the things she knew, because they were forcing her to.

It was all Sam and Freddie and their stupid dating problems. It was never Carly; there was never any room for Carly. She was friends with them for years and this was the thanks she got. Drowning herself in drinks late into the weeknights, running across the street without caring, forgetting about herself completely. This was what she had become through it all.

_"What's wrong with you lately, Carly?"_

_"Wrong? What do you mean? Nothing's wrong. My two best friends are just completely forgetting that I exist, but everything's just peachy. Why would anything be wrong?"_

_"I'm s-"_

_"You're not sorry, Sam. If you were, you'd make an effort to spend time with me."_

_"C'mon, we went to Glitter Gloss together the other day. And we still hang out at school and stuff..."_

_"You don't get it."_

Because if she did get it, she would have known what Carly was doing to herself, trying to get rid of the pain. If she did understand, she would act like a best friend and actually try to find out what was wrong and make an effort to fix it. But she didn't. She didn't understand, and she didn't want to understand. And Carly was left alone to deal with that reality.

"I'm still here," she whispers to herself as she fondles that same piece of paper. At times, she almost forgets she's there. At times, she sinks deep into the world she has created for herself, a secluded one dripping in alcohol and tears, keeping her away from everyone else, yet somehow still on the edge of being there.

_"Just because you're dating Freddie doesn't mean you can completely forget about me!"_

_"I didn't, Carly! You're still my best friend."_

_"No, I'm not. He is. He's your everything now. You don't love me anymore. If you did, you... you'd know."_

_"Know what?"_

_"That that little piece of orange paper is all I have left."_

She didn't know what that meant, though. She didn't know that Carly was literally living off of those two beautiful words, off the memories they held and the moments they prevented her from forgetting. She didn't know how much Carly missed her, how much she needed her. She didn't know how much it hurt that she had forgotten Carly. She didn't know.

On the edge of Carly's mind now is another memory, the memory of the night Sam and Freddie broke up, and Sam came to her just after midnight, sobbing and distraught, expecting Carly to be there for her like the good best friend that Sam had not been for her these past few months. And Carly was. Carly took Sam in her arms like nothing had happened, pretended she wasn't just as broken as Sam was then, if not more, and let Sam sob into her arms. She let Sam believe that she had done nothing to give Carly any reason not to be there for her. She let her, because Carly couldn't bring herself to do anything else. Because Carly still loved Sam. Because Sam still meant the world to Carly, even after the way Carly had fallen apart. Because Carly _needed _her, and she wasn't about to push Sam away when she needed Carly to be there.

_"Thank you, Carly."_

_"For what?"_

_"For being here." _

_"Oh. You're welcome."_

_"Carly?"_

_"Mmm?"_

_"I love you."_

_"I love you, too."_

It didn't change, though. It didn't. Carly tried to convince herself that Sam would be her's again when she broke up with Freddie, but Carly knew somewhere deep within that that was never the case. Because somewhere, at some point, Carly fell for Sam in a way that could never be satisfied by friendship. And though they may go back to being best friends, it will never be the same anymore, because Carly feels differently now, because everything is different. Because a million things have changed, and Carly is still on the edge of forgetting who she is, still drowning and not really living and no longer caring about herself, still sinking into depression and not knowing truly why, the shattered pieces of her confused heart slicing at her in places deep within that she didn't know could feel so much sorrow.

"I'm still here," She repeats, allowing a small tear to slip down her cheek as she thinks of the previous night, of a million things she didn't tell Sam.

_"I don't think we can be friends anymore."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because... because I just can't do this."_

_"Carly, you're my best friend. Did I do something wrong? If I did, tell me. I'm sorry."_

_"It's not you anymore. It's me. We can't be friends. I can't do this. I can't feel this way. You should just... go."  
><em>

_"But-"  
><em>

_"Please, Sam."_

_A sigh._

_"Okay..."_

_"Stay blonde."_

_"Stay brune."_


End file.
